Bayard Rustin Is Dead at 75; Pacifist and a Rights Activist

By ERIC PACE

Published: August 25, 1987

Bayard Rustin, the pacifist and civil rights activist who was a chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington and the 1964 New York school boycott, died early yesterday at Lenox Hill Hospital. He was 75 years old and was a longtime resident of the Chelsea section of Manhattan.

A spokesman for the hospital, Jean Brett, said Mr. Rustin was admitted to its emergency room Friday morning ''complaining of abdominal pain'' and later that morning he ''underwent surgery for a perforated appendix and peritonitis.'' At 11:20 P.M. Sunday, the statement added, ''Mr. Rustin went into cardiac arrest and died at 12:02 A.M.'' yesterday.

Mr. Rustin's administrative assistant and adopted son, Walter Naegle, said, ''He seemed to be bouncing back and doing O.K., but he had a history of heart problems, and it appears that the strain of the operation caused the cardiac arrest.''

At his death, Mr. Rustin was co-chairman, with Leon Lynch, of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, an educational, civil rights and labor organization based in New York, and president of its education fund.

Commenting on Mr. Rustin's death, Roy Innis, national chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality, said: ''Bayard Rustin was a planner, a coordinator, a thinker. He influenced all of the young leaders in the civil rights movement, even those of us who did not agree with him ideologically.''

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Democrat of New York, said: ''We first met on the march for jobs and freedom. It was an event that changed the nation. From that moment forward, the great civil rights bills of 1964 and 1965 were not only possible but near accomplished. He taught us love and gave us peace.''

Mr. Rustin's career ranged from such activities as having organized the first Freedom Ride, which was then called a Journey of Reconciliation, in 1947, to a role in the Free India movement before the subcontinent gained its independence from Britain, to involvement in antinuclear demonstrations in England and North Africa and to serving as an aide to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Mr. Rustin once described his militant activity this way: ''I believe in social dislocation and creative trouble.''

''Mr. March'' was what A. Philip Randolph, the labor leader, called Mr. Rustin in tribute to his tireless efforts in planning and arranging the 1963 demonstration, called the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, in which 200,000 people took part.

That success was repeated when Mr. Rustin directed the one-day school boycott, on Feb. 3, 1964, which was called by groups that were dissatisfied with the New York City Board of Education's integration efforts. All told, 464,000 pupils stayed away from school, 360,000 more than the daily average.

Mr. Rustin was a complex, intense man with a flair for advocacy and a passion for detail. He built an international reputation as an organizer because of his skill at planning every aspect of protest demonstrations and his imaginativeness as a tactician. Analyst Without Power Base

He also won admirers as a political philosopher and analyst. But he never had a big power base among blacks, and late in life he was criticized by some who felt he was more an advocate of Jewish, labor and white liberal causes than of black causes.

Mr. Rustin's effectiveness as an advocate and organizer was enhanced by his striking appearance: He was a 200-pound six-footer with high cheekbones, intense eyes and, late in life, a shock of white hair. A Pennsylvanian who attended City College of New York and lived for many years on West 28th Street, he spoke in a clipped manner that was, he once said, the remnant of a British accent acquired as a young man on a sojourn at the London School of Economics.

Looking back at his career, Mr. Rustin, a Quaker, once wrote: ''The principal factors which influenced my life are 1) nonviolent tactics; 2) constitutional means; 3) democratic procedures; 4) respect for human personality; 5) a belief that all people are one.''

Mr. Rustin had repeated run-ins with the law over the years. As an ardent pacifist, he spent 28 months in prison for refusing military service in World War II. He spent weeks on a North Carolina road gang after being convicted of violating bus seating laws in a civil rights demonstration in 1947. And, as the years passed, he was imprisoned or arrested more than 20 times, in cases including numerous charges in connection with his civil rights and pacifist activity. Evolution of Philosophy

Early in life he was a radical: he belonged to the Young Communist League for several years, then embraced Socialism and for decades was associated with Mr. Randolph, who was a founder of the modern-day civil rights movement.

As time passed, Mr. Rustin became relatively more conservative, stressing what he saw as the prime importance of working for black progress through the trade union movement.

''I know that I have changed, but the changes have been in response to the objective conditions,'' he told an interviewer in 1970.

He advocated a coalition approach toward achieving ''progressive change,'' drawing on support from the Jewish community and from liberal and leftist political circles in addition to the unions; and he served for many years as the president of the A. Philip Randolph Institute.